


Already Home

by imparfait



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 06:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15857748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imparfait/pseuds/imparfait
Summary: Remus is three steps ahead, always is, but Sirius never stops trying to catch him.





	Already Home

Darkness rolls in on the back of a thunderstorm. It's the kind of night where adults speak in hushed whispers but they are not adults, they're still boys who shout into the wind and roll together in the mud.

Mrs. Potter calls them in when the sky lights up, blinding white followed by a symphony of thunderclaps. Summer storms are the best, Sirius argues, but it falls on deaf ears. They drink lemonade by the window in Sirius' room and he wonders if it's raining in London, drops pattering on Regulus window like a lullaby. 

It's warm outside but cool in here, by virtue of the cooling charms Mr. Potter so diligently maintains between June and September. Their shirts are still soaked through even if the mud has been spelled off. Their skin is still sticky-hot from the late afternoon sun. Remus is nut brown and laughing, the way Sirius loves him best.

The rain pours down and James shouts up that there's supper, shepherd's pie. They trounce down the stairs like baby elephants toward the watering hole, stumbling over each other on new legs, summer legs, the sort that don't go to class and play chess but adventure in the forest and have campouts in the back garden.

Morning brings sunshine and thick, heady air that smells like soil and feels like molasses when Sirius runs through it. Remus is three steps ahead, always is, but Sirius never stops trying to catch him. They dart into the woods but summer is too new and the skin on Sirius feet is thin from those abominations society calls shoes, so he Changes mid-stride and comes down on four paws. He catches Remus-Padfoot can catch anyone-and they tumble into the mud. Padfoot goes head over paws before he Changes again, laughing, and lands sprawling in a pile of twigs. Remus crawls out of the mud and wipes the dirt off of his face. They kiss. It tastes like earth and stale water. Remus pulls away, cheeks ruddy underneath the mud-smears and the sunkissed-skin. 

James is shouting from the edge of the woods. The moment ends with the crack of a twig as Sirius shifts to stand up. There will be tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Summer stretches on forever in front of them. September is an eternity away.

Peter's due in that evening and that'll be the four of them reunited, Maraurders in Summer. Freedom from Hogwarts means no detention; the Potters mean no rules. The world is beautiful. James comes barrelling through the trees and stops short of the mud puddle, stumbling and laughing, pointing at the birds nest of leaves and twigs that has tangled into Sirius' hair and the dirty streaks on the front of Remus' shirt.

Remus, ever the mature and reasonable one, throws two handfuls of mud at James Potter's smug face. Their laughter sends the birds up off their roosts. Morning fades into afternoon and they emerge from the trees. They're a merry, incomplete band of three trooping back for provisions. High noon bakes the rain away. 

Peter arrives in a cloud of soot and emerald flames. There's laughter and too many biscuits, and the night fades away into the eerie, filtered light of an overcast morning. James thinks it'll rain again, and more's the better that they sleep through it, but Sirius wishes for sun. He wants to run through the woods again-this time without traps set by muddy pits-and sunshine filtering through the trees. It's selfish, maybe, because he likes Remus best when he's warm from the sun and shirtless. 

Rainy summers leave them all too pale and clothed, plus Moony will scuttle off into the sitting room with his nose in a book. He'll do homework or something equally revolting. Sirius decides, as they settle down to sleep atop of a mountain of blankets in James' room, that he will not stand for homework in July no matter how much rain pelts the windows. He falls asleep to the sound of Peter snoring and James wheezing.

Remus leaves on a hot afternoon as July dies, parched and slow. Sirius feels summer slipping away. He wonders if time passes like this for Remus always, if he counts the days of every month all the time, not just between June and September. He must. Remus always knows the date, knows how long between now and the full moon, how long since the last. He's always counting, Moony, counting every minute and every day and it drives Sirius mad in the summer and madder still now, when Remus has to leave to go rip himself to shreds in a spelled cellar. There's no saving Moony from himself in the summer. Next year, maybe, when they're free of parents and Hogwarts and the mad-hatter counting of every moment.

He's run away once; he makes threats to do it again, this time not to parents and cracking, aged portraits, but to the universe at large. He'll take Moony away, fly a broom up and out, find a place in the universe where the full moon can't find them and every day is midsummer.

A week passes and manages to be both too slow and over too fast. Sirius spends an entire morning pacing in front of the fireplace, listening to the clock tick, watching summer slip away and wishing it would go perhaps faster, just for an hour, just until the fireplace flared green and a Moony stumbled out of it, sneezing from soot in his nose. He comes through early, while Sirius has his back turned and is cursing at a portrait of Charlus Potter the Seventh.

Remus laughs through his sneeze and Sirius spins on his heel. He forgets the injustices of Portrait Potter and scoops Moony up into a jig. He kisses him and doesn't care when the portrait objects loudly, doesn't notice when Mrs Potter laughs softly from the doorway. There's a new scar on the bridge of Moony's nose. It's more fascinating than the indignation of a long-dead wizard or the curious acceptance of his almost-Mum. Moony's always been his favorite mystery, and loving Moony has been the best bit of mischief Sirius ever found himself in.


End file.
